do what You love

A text message pops up on my phone: “Hurry up and get to class, the professor needs you!” I assume it’s a technical issue, and my suspicions are confirmed as soon as I walk through the door. I see this photograph on the screen:
Professor Bernstein and the guest speaker, Sara Krulwich, ask me to fix the projector, and after fiddling around with the brightness and contrast controls, this comes into view:

The Michigan Daily – Jay Cassidy

I take a moment to understand what I am looking at: A crowd exclusively of men, and one female news reporter wearing an enormous hat. What an extraordinary way to stand out!

Standing out was something Sara Krulwich has been doing in her entire life, and she is rather successful at it. A combination of courage, skill, and determination propel her to take pictures of people 10 inches away from their face, force her way into a men-only football stadium, and perform the many other difficult tasks that a photographer encounters on a daily basis. Clearly, this woman had a passion for her art, and it vibrated throughout the room intensely as she spoke about her life and career as a photographer.

Sara Krulwich currently works for the New York Times as a theatrical photographer, and we were lucky to have her as a guest speaker in our class. Her photography and stories captivated our class and she did not cease to astound us with big numbers: Number of years as a photographer, number of pictures taken per performance, and ratio of men to women in that football stadium. However, the most valuable piece of knowledge that Krulwich conveyed to us about had nothing to do with her alone, but rather with us. This message was not spoken, but rather conveyed emotionally through her presentation: do what you love, and. in turn, people will love whatever it is that you are doing.